


The Rogue and the Pearl

by Celia_and



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Accidental Public Orgasm, Actor Kylo Ren, Actor Rey (Star Wars), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Blow Jobs, Casual Sex, Doggy Style, Dominant Kylo Ren, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Falling In Love, First Meetings, Fluff, Happily Ever After, Happy Ending, Misunderstandings, Multiple Orgasms, Mutual Pining, No Pregnancy, One Night Stands, Rough Sex, Simulated Sex, Smut, Soft sex, Unprotected Sex, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:02:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,561
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26074609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celia_and/pseuds/Celia_and
Summary: “Rey.” He grabs her chin and tips her head up to meet his eyes. “This isn’t just tonight. Okay?”She smiles. A tentative, real little grin.He kisses her, once. Gently.Then he starts to thrust.----------A one-night stand. A missed connection. When actors Rey and Kylo land roles on the same TV show, the tension isn’t just between their characters.
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 342
Kudos: 1234





	1. That Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dashalle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dashalle/gifts).



> A long-overdue gift for my darling friend Halle. 💛
> 
> This chapter’s moodboard was made by [MizKittyMystic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizKittyMystic/)!

The bartender handed her her first drink. She turned around, taking a sip. Her eyes skimmed the crowd. She saw him. He saw her.

And that was that.

* * *

_He’s all the way inside now, and it’s taking everything she has to keep breathing. Her hands cling to him—hair, shirt, shoulders, anything they can find. How is her body doing this? Taking him like it was molded specially to fit his cock? She’s desperate. For air, for friction, for him to never, ever stop looking at her like he’s looking at her now._

_“Kylo,” she pleads, her voice breaking over the word._

_He doesn’t move. He sucks in deep, quavering breaths._

_She mewls and paws at his neck, his jaw. She whines and tries to rise up higher on her tiptoes, to feel the drag of him along her nerves._

_He blinks and shakes his head experimentally, like he’s not sure if he’s in a dream. His eyes refocus on her. “Not just tonight.”_

_She nods blindly. She would nod at anything if it meant he would start thrusting._

_“Rey.” He grabs her chin and tips her head up to meet his eyes. “This isn’t just tonight. Okay?”_

_She smiles. A tentative, real little grin._

_He kisses her, once. Gently._

_Then he starts to thrust._

_She gives herself over to him._

* * *

It was impulsive. She got dressed up and put on too-heavy makeup and started teetering down the sidewalk to the club. None of this was a good idea: she should’ve stayed home and learned lines for her next audition. It definitely would’ve been better to go to bed at a reasonable hour and save her money. She was just so unbearably sick of doing the responsible thing. Navigating the sidewalks in knife-sharp heels, she considered turning back at least half a dozen times. It was stupid and reckless to go to a club alone. But she pictured how defeated she would feel, having to wash off the makeup without even sweating any of it off first.

Her stubbornness saved her. Or damned her, depending on how you look at it.

* * *

_They don’t make it to his bed until the third time. The first time he takes her standing against the wall, the second bent over the back of the couch. They shed clothes gradually. They meant to make it to the bed earlier, she’s pretty sure, but there were distractions along the way. Like his arms and his lips and his sweetly filthy mouth. She probably distracted him too, to be fair. With the way she ran her hands over his torso like she owned it. Or how she swiped a single finger through her folds and brought it to his mouth to suck. But he was insistent on finally making it to the bedroom. She didn’t care so much either way, she just wanted him._

_She does have to hand it to him, it’s more comfortable this way, lying like a blanket on top of him as he rocks into her from below. The angle is more extreme than his cock wants, and it often slips out and he has to reach down over her ass and nudge it back in. He leaves his hand on the swell of her rear for a while every time. Sometimes he tickles the dimples on her lower back to make her laugh. And finally he takes her hips in his hands and raises them up enough to really start thrusting, and she’s not laughing anymore._

_“Oh, FUCK.”_

_Is this her fifth orgasm or her sixth? She’s lost count._

* * *

“I’m Kylo.” It wasn’t the smoothest of opening lines.

Neither was her response. “I’m Rey.”

It didn’t matter, though. He could’ve said anything. It was too late: their eyes had already decided and told each other so.

She downed her drink in one go and left the glass on the bar.

They danced, or at least what can pass for dancing in a club. She snaked her arms around his shoulders and he took her waist in his hands and ground himself against her. She only broke eye contact when it got to be too much, and then she looked down at his chin and nipped the five o’clock shadow there. She couldn’t hear his groan over the thump of the bass, but she felt it rumble in his chest. She made it all of ten minutes before grabbing his hand and pulling him to the exit, which she thought was evidence of truly remarkable self-control.

He took her in his arms as they waited for a cab. He kissed her firmly and silently, with an assured possessiveness, like he was taking his girlfriend home to fuck her into the mattress where he’d fucked her a thousand times before. When the cab pulled up and he opened the door for her, she hesitated for about three seconds.

It’s a shame. Those were three seconds more that she could’ve had him inside her.

* * *

_It’s slightly easier to think when he’s not looking into her eyes. As she braces herself against the back of the couch she wonders how often he does this. Maybe every night. He could, certainly, if he wanted to. She pictures all the women he’s bent over this couch and she hates him a little._

_He slams into her particularly hard just then, like he can hear her thoughts. “You,” he growls, “are magnificent.”_

_She shivers and whines her thanks. For his words, for the sweat coating her back, for letting her be tonight’s cocksleeve._

_Then he bends forward, kisses the back of her neck, adjusts his stance, and starts pounding into her like the world is ending._

_And she can’t think about his other women because she’s too busy coming._

* * *

“Who are you?” he asked in the cab. His voice was the slightest bit accusatory, like she’d tricked him somehow.

“I’m Rey.”

“I know.” He waited for more.

“I’m an actor,” she said, with a sheepish smile that meant _I wait tables and go to every open call audition I can find._

He chuckled. “Aren’t we all.”

“Are you?” she asked. “An actor?”

He raked his eyes up over her thighs, her waist, her tits. They reached her face and gleamed.

“Sweetheart, I can be anything you want me to be.”

* * *

_In the wee hours of the morning he takes her slowly. She’s at his mercy, lying on her back beneath him, and he’s tired. So is she. She doesn’t know if it’s the fact that he’s too tired to thrust or some other reason why he stops so often, buried in her overflowing wetness, to stroke her face and kiss her._

_“Mmm.” She closes her eyes. “Kylo.”_

_“Yeah?”_

_“‘S good.”_

_“You like that? Are you gonna come again for me?”_

_She shakes her head and slurs, “Tired.”_

_“Just one more, Rey. Please. Tell me how.”_

_She opens her eyes to an intense earnestness that she doesn’t understand. But she takes his thumb and guides it to the toe-curling spot just below her ear. “Grind against my clit. And stroke here.”_

_He looks like she gave him the keys to paradise. He pulls out and situates his cock in the crevice of her folds instead, so he can press it against her swollen nub. Her feet kneading into his ass set the pace that she needs. And when his thumb finds that sensitive patch of skin, her eyes roll back in her head and she’s gone, lost in him._

* * *

“Who are you?” he asked again, softly enough that she could hear but the cab driver couldn’t. No part of them was touching.

She wished she could see herself through his eyes. She shrugged. “I’m me.”

He nodded. Thoughtfully, like she said something profound. “Exactly.”

* * *

_She doesn’t mean to fall asleep, it just happens. She can only withstand so many orgasms._

_When she wakes with a start she thinks he’ll be angry that she fell asleep in his bed, or at least annoyed. But he smiles and kisses her like he was just waiting for her to wake up. She’s still sleepy and tousled and she doesn’t know how to make sense of him. He says, “Stay right here,” and she hums and stretches out like a starfish in the ocean of his bed. He comes back with a hastily assembled ham and cheese sandwich, and he eats half while she eats the other. They’re both naked, but she forgets to be self-conscious, even about her smudged makeup or the roll on her stomach as she sits slouched next to him._

_He feeds her his cock, next. She sits on the bed and he stands, and it can’t possibly be comfortable how much he needs to widen his stance and bend his knees as she bobs on him. He doesn’t seem to mind. He chokes on the pleasure and spends on her cheek. She wipes it off with her fingers and licks them clean._

_He pulls her down with him when he collapses. His fingers probe her tender entrance. She whimpers, but he kisses her neck and she spreads her thighs for him. His eyes struggle to stay open. He fights it, like he can’t bear not watching her._

_“Stay,” he murmurs, and she nods. “Rey.”_

_He falls asleep before he can finish her off, with two fingers still in her._

_She’s never slept so well as beside him._

* * *

She registered how nice his building was as she clambered out of the cab. He must not have been an actor after all, because if he were successful enough to afford this luxury she probably would’ve seen him in something.

She thought he likely had a cleaning lady and a private chef and a personal shopper, and she would’ve asked except that by then the elevator doors were closing and he was pressing the button for his floor and it was a matter of seconds, probably, not minutes, before he’d be fucking her.

She didn’t count, but as it turns out, it _was_ seconds. Forty-eight.

* * *

_He’s still asleep when she wakes, but he reaches out for her anyway when she rolls quietly away, and it makes her smile. It’s early still. She needs to get home to shower and change before her shift. She decides not to wake him. She scribbles her phone number and an “x” on a scrap of paper and leaves it on his bedside table._

_She dresses and leaves quietly, smiling a private smile as she wonders how long it’ll be before he wakes up and calls._

_He hasn’t called yet by the time she makes it home, and she takes her phone in the bathroom so she can pick it up if the call comes when she’s in the shower. She gets dressed for work and still he doesn’t call, but it’s okay, he probably isn’t a particularly early riser. She slips her phone in her pocket and checks it surreptitiously during her shift, even though it could get her fired. She plasters on a smile and takes care of her tables, all the while wondering if she misheard him. Maybe he really said “This is just tonight” and she heard the “not” that she wanted to hear._

_Her shift ends. She goes home. She puts her ringer on high and jumps at the slightest sound._

_She waits. She waits a night, then a day, then another. She comes up with a hundred excuses for him and rejects all of them. She keeps thinking that this— this will be the night that he finally decides to dial her number, even if just for a quick fuck. She would go if he called. That’s the messed-up part. She goes home with other men and she compares them all to him. She hates herself, and she waits._

Two years.

He never calls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m delighted to report that I have this whole fic written already, so I’ll be posting updates every day or two! 😊


	2. The Rogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Moodboard by [@bensoloswhore](https://twitter.com/bensoloswhore).

She lands little parts here and there, enough to feed her hope that this whole acting thing isn’t an impossible endeavor. She makes friends. She gets an agent. She buys a toaster that doesn’t spark when you plug it in. She’s doing well, on the whole.

Except...

He comes to her in dreams. At times inside her, enveloping her, fucking her with honey-sweet kisses until she gasps awake, drenched and throbbing. Her body makes wet for him that he’ll never get to use. She groans her frustration and reaches for her dildo. It’s never the same. Because it’s not just the physical release that her dreams tease her with—it’s the being wanted.

Sometimes the dreams are different. Sometimes the two of them are lying on a blanket in a park, looking up at the clouds. Or getting coffee. Her dreams devise dates for them: thoroughly chaste encounters that make her feel pathetic when she wakes up, but not enough that she doesn’t look forward to the next one.

She _is_ pathetic. To have spent one night with a stranger and to moon over him for this long. So much that her unconscious brain constructs elaborate fantasies of caring and tenderness and belonging.

That’s all they are, at least: fantasies. She could _do_ something, but she won’t. She could go back to the club. Try to find him again. She can picture the scene too vividly. The bartender would hand her her drink. She’d turn around in time to see him locking eyes with another woman. Or dancing with her. Letting her body borrow his hands.

She could even go to his apartment—turn up one night and ring his doorbell, and see the confusion in his eyes as he answers the door and half-remembers but can’t place her. She could do either of those things, or she could finally accept the fact that she can’t escape:

He was never hers to lose.

* * *

He is an actor after all. Entertainment Weekly breaks the news: Kylo Ren cast as The Rogue starting in the third season of _Prince of Thunder._ For a few days she can’t go online without seeing his face plastered over headlines about the unknown actor who came out of nowhere to land the biggest role in the biggest show in the western hemisphere. She tries not to read the articles. (She reads the articles.)

When filming starts, a handful of stealthy camera lenses share what the producers desperately don’t want shared: Kylo with long hair. Kylo in a torn, matted tunic with an emerald armband that prompts a whirlwind of fan speculation about his character’s identity. It makes it easier, in a way, seeing reminders of him everywhere. It helps her be angry at him. He doesn’t need the money, he doesn’t have to struggle the way she does. _God,_ what a charmed life. He simply fucks someone and she can’t forget him years later. He turns up to a career-defining audition and simply lands the part. Her hair has ketchup in it and her feet hurt.

It doesn’t help that her friends are avid watchers of the show. They have no reason to know why she wouldn’t want them to talk about it around her. They don’t know about her and him, of course, because there’s nothing to tell.

Her agent calls, excited about an audition he got for her. For _Prince of Thunder._ Because apparently the universe is playing a massive, mean-spirited prank on her. _Fuck him,_ she decides. She grits her teeth and accepts. Casting is so secretive that she doesn’t even know what role she’s auditioning for; it could be Tavern Wench #3. She’s not nervous going into the audition because she doesn’t care if she gets it. In some ways, she would rather she didn’t. She’s calm and confident. They call her back for another audition.

It goes well. They call her back for another audition. It’s around that point that she comes to the conclusion that she’s probably not auditioning for Tavern Wench #3.

At the third audition, the room is full. She’s nervous for the first time. Fortunately, the first scene they gave her requires her to be nervous, timid. Unsure of herself. She hopes they chalk her performance up to good acting. The second is where she’s going to fail, though. It needs self-possession and fury, and she doesn’t think she’ll be able to muster either convincingly with all these eyes on her.

She does, as it turns out. Because then they bring in the person she’ll be reading with for the scene. And fury comes naturally.

He’s wearing sunglasses indoors, like an asshole. He doesn’t see her at first: he’s too busy looking down at a piece of paper that’s probably the scene that he didn’t bother to read before he walked in the room, because he’s an asshole. His body language too clearly screams what a waste of time he thinks this is. But he gets to be an asshole, she supposes, because he’s The Rogue.

Because he’s Kylo _fucking_ Ren.

She straightens her spine and sets her chin.

He takes off his sunglasses and hands them to the person whose job it is to be handed his sunglasses. He glances over and sees her. The vague confusion she’d expected to find in his eyes isn’t there. There’s shock, certainly. And underneath that...hurt? Anger? She can’t tell. Neither of those even remotely makes sense—maybe she’s reading him wrong.

Someone introduces them to each other. She smiles thinly and shakes his hand with a firm grip. He looks lost. He sets down the script; he must have memorized it after all. And the scene begins.

“How did you find me?” he asks quietly.

“It wasn’t hard,” she sneers, “for someone who knows you like I do.”

“You really believe that, don’t you? You honestly think you know me.”

“I know that you only care about gold,” she answers haughtily. “Why else would you have killed those poor men in cold blood?”

She thought he’d growl the next line, but he speaks it softly, wearily. “Many, many reasons.”

She’s taken aback for a second but regains her composure. “Well. It doesn’t matter. You know what I’ve come for. And I’m not leaving until I get it.”

His eyes flicker over her. “Then I guess you’re not leaving, my pearl. Because I’m never going to give it to you.”

She flushes. “Don’t call me that,” she snaps.

“I’ll call you whatever I want,” he says, advancing on her. His eyes scorch. This scene isn’t supposed to be so... so...

“It’s my birthright, you filthy rogue!” she yells, flustered.

“Ah, but what if it weren’t?” He steps closer still. “What if the man you call ‘father’ wasn’t your father at all?”

She whirls around. “I won’t listen to this!”

He grabs her by the arm and spins her back. She gasps in outrage. “You will! You need to know the truth!” He looks deep in her eyes and his voice quiets. “You _deserve_ it.”

“You’ve never told me anything but lies,” she insists shakily.

His hand is still on her arm. He looks down at it. So does she. He slowly lets go.

“I’ll tell you anything you want to know, pearl. I’m an open book, with you.”

She shakes her head. She doesn’t have to force the tears. “Don’t. Stop it,” she begs in a fierce whisper.

He’s close enough that she can feel his breath as he lets loose an exhale. “Very well. Not today. But soon.”

The scene is over, but neither of them breaks character. He leans forward an infinitesimal amount, and for one wild moment she thinks he’ll kiss her. But then he steps back and slouches away, and someone hands him his sunglasses and he’s gone.

Her agent calls that night ecstatic with the news. The part is hers if she wants it. A recurring character that they’re already talking about transitioning to a regular based on her chemistry with Kylo.

She would be crazy to accept. She would be crazy _not_ to.

She’s fucked either way. So she takes a deep breath and tells her agent yes.

* * *

She dreams about him that night, with long hair and sad eyes. He whispers his sorrys with kisses, and she wakes up crying.

She’ll remember how to be angry in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your love for this fic and these characters means ever so much to me! Thank you! ❤️
> 
>  _Edited to add:_ Feel free to check my [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CeliaAnd2) for status/updates!


	3. The Script

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has been graced by a stunning mooadboard by [MizKittyMystic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizKittyMystic/) _and_ an astounding manip by [@bensoloswhore](https://twitter.com/bensoloswhore) that inspired the photoshoot scene (see the end of the page!).

Shooting begins. She flies to Scotland. She resolves to be relentlessly, incontestably professional. She has enough to do with learning her lines and navigating such a huge production without worrying about him on top of everything else. He’s on location too, but the first couple weeks they don’t shoot together, so they have no reason to be in the same place. She wakes up early to get breakfast from the hotel buffet and retreats upstairs so she doesn’t accidentally run into him. It’s only one day when she’s a few minutes earlier than usual that she realizes that he’s been getting breakfast before her. He doesn’t spare her a glance as he leaves carrying no fewer than three bananas in one hand.

 _It’s fine,_ she thinks as she slices into a sausage with slightly more ferocity than necessary. _It’ll be fine._

Their scenes together start the following week. Her character seeks him out to confront him in the scene from her audition. And since the Rogue refuses to tell her where the amulet is and her character refuses to leave until he gives it up, they become grudging travel partners as he journeys north. Which means many of their scenes are just the two of them. Often outdoors, or in an artfully grimy hut.

The wind is bracing in small doses and unbearable in large ones, but she won’t show any weakness in front of him. Her character has a thin wool shawl and he has a thick cloak. She tries not to shiver. She won’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her weak.

On the fourteenth take, though, her teeth start to chatter in the middle of a line. She thinks the director will call cut, but he doesn’t. She’s cold and tired and no one cares, and she doesn’t _mean_ for her eyes to fill with tears, it just happens. Kylo doesn’t say his next line, he just looks at her. Surely they’ll call cut now?

He walks over to her and she flinches away. Her _character_ flinches away. He stops and holds his hands up in an _I mean no harm_ gesture. Slowly, like he’s trying not to startle her, he takes his cloak off and drapes it around her shoulders. She catches herself before she melts into him.

She stiffens her spine and finishes the scene. The director says they don’t need another take.

She tries to shrug the heavy cloak off without it taking her shawl with it.

“Keep it,” he grunts without looking at her.

He refuses the coat that his assistant holds out. He jogs the quarter mile back to the trailers like he’s trying to outrun something.

* * *

What if he didn’t find her note? What if a freak gust of wind blew it under the bed? What if his cleaning lady threw it away? What if a bird broke the screen, flew in the window, and took it to build its nest?

Or what if she stopped wasting her time on fantasies and kept her pride?

* * *

One morning she has a photoshoot on her calendar instead of filming. She doesn’t know anything about it, but she doesn’t need to know; she just shows up and lets hair and makeup people do things to her. The shoot is in an artistically old house staged with water-damaged books on the shelves and lumpy old sofas against peeling walls.

The first round consists of ensemble shots outdoors, with Kylo and a half dozen other actors with whom she’s had barely any scenes. They’re in costume, standing spread apart and looking sly or blasé or threatening depending on their characters. All Rey has to do is look innocent, and timid, and a little lost, but strong and confident at the same time. An ingenue _and_ a strong female role model. She nods earnestly at the photographer’s direction and only rolls her eyes internally. She is a good actor, after all.

The shoot doesn’t take nearly as long as she expects—she realizes later because they can Photoshop the best shots of each of them together rather than holding out for the perfect group shot.

She’s wondering if she might even have time for a break when a production assistant informs her that they’re now moving on to the next portion: her shoot with Kylo. Her palms start to sweat, but she bites her tongue and submits to more makeup and a curling iron and beachy, tousled waves. They paint her nails black, which will probably be a bitch to get off entirely, but she supposes that her character’s nails might be permitted to look grimy after weeks on the road.

She balks at the wardrobe: a black silk slip dress and a flowy, bohemian-style robe, both of which only come down to about her mid-thigh.

“Are you sure this is what they want me in?” she gathers her courage to ask the PA.

“Yeah, that’s what Paul is going for. A casual, domestic hangout situation.”

She’s not sure which is worse: casual, domestic, or hangout. She’s given flip-flops to walk down the hall to the room where the shoot will happen but informed that she’ll be barefoot for the photos. She’s not sure whether she’s ever been so nervous.

Kylo is already there when she gets there. He’s in heather grey slacks and a white button-down top, and why does _he_ get to wear real clothes? He hardly looks any more comfortable in them than Rey feels in her slip, though. His sleeves are pushed up his forearms and folded over on themselves with a studied messiness. His shirt is open one more button than he would probably wear, and the collar is splayed far enough that she can see the hollows above his collarbones. He’s scowling so deeply she thinks he’ll give himself a permanent furrow between his eyebrows. She itches to touch it.

He looks up and sees her, and she doesn’t look away, because she deserves a little reward for undergoing this experience, so she lets herself watch his eyes as they darken at the sight of her bare legs. His lips part. His hand twitches. He looks away.

It’s some small comfort. At least maybe his body wants her body, even if he doesn’t want her.

The photographer, who she assumes is Paul, is gathering them together and explaining his vision. They’ll be lounging on a long lumpy old couch, casually. Two friends enjoying each other’s company. Smiling, laughing. The more he says, the deeper Kylo’s frown grows.

“I’m sorry this is such a hardship for you,” she bites savagely under her breath as Paul turns away to respond to a question from his assistant.

“Who said it was?” he grits out.

“I’m not sure you could be scowling any harder if you tried.”

“It’s nothing.”

“If you fuck up this photoshoot, Kylo...”

“If you can do it, I can.”

She doesn’t understand him. She never understands him. And as it turns out, neither of them can do it. He’s sitting astride one arm of the couch and she’s sitting at the other end with her legs outstretched on the cushions. Casual. Friendly. Except that he looks like he’s sitting on a bed of nails, and every muscle in her body is tensed and their smiles are pained and their laughter is forced.

They’re put in different poses. One of them on the couch, the other on the floor. One standing, one sitting. “Lounge!” Paul keeps exclaiming. “Relax!” And every time, Kylo’s jaw clenches harder and Rey’s smile gets a little more wild-eyed.

The shoot is a failure. Two hours in, Rey would be shocked if there’s been a single remotely usable shot. It’s past lunch time, and many sets of eyes in the room glance at phones and watches. Rey could cry from frustration and failure. She’s taking up all these people’s time because she’s not good enough. She’s not a good enough actor to pretend that _anything_ between Kylo and her is relaxed or casual or friendly, because it’s not.

Paul looks through the last batch of shots thoughtfully. Rey tucks her bare legs under her and waits for him to tell her how badly she’s doing. Kylo glances over at her, she sees in her periphery, but she doesn’t look back at him because she doesn’t want to see the blame in his eyes.

Finally, Paul looks up. “Okay, I’ve been going about this the wrong way. Your characters aren’t friends, right? They’ve been thrown together, unwillingly. There’s a tension there. An intensity. I don’t want you at opposite ends of the sofa. I want you touching.”

She does look over at Kylo, now. He doesn’t look at her.

“Kylo, you sit in the middle. Just to the right of the window,” Paul goes on. “Rey, you’re next to him.”

She waits for him to situate himself before she joins him. He looks like he doesn’t remember how to sit. He splays his legs instinctively before she approaches, and he brings his knees together to make room for her.

“No,” Paul directs, “leave your legs like they were. Rey, curl up right by his hip.”

Kylo looks resolutely ahead as she sits down next to him and brings her knees up so her feet can rest on the couch in front of her, trying to keep her slip from riding up. Getting into the position is awkward enough that she doesn’t fully register how much of them is touching until she’s situated. Her arm rests against his, and her knee grazes his abdomen, and her shins are nestled against the outside of his thigh. Her bare foot brushes his knee. She tenses, but it’s nothing compared to him.

She’s never touched a terrified animal, but his controlled trembling is exactly what she imagines it would be like. She doesn’t know why her impulse is to comfort him. She puts a hand on his knee.

“Hey,” she murmurs. “It’s okay.”

He looks at her full on for the first time in hours. She’s never been so close to him in daylight.

“You can touch me,” she says. “It’s just for the pictures, right?”

“Yeah,” he says, clearing his throat.

“That’s _great,”_ Paul is saying. “Kylo, put your right hand on her leg. Rey, lean into him more.”

His hand hovers above her leg. She can feel the heat from his palm.

“Just for the pictures,” she repeats.

He rests his hand on her thigh. She leans toward him, enough that her hair rests against his temple.

“It’s okay,” she murmurs again. His trembling slowly subsides.

His body is so warm, so solid. If only everyone else in the room would leave and just let her sit here, curled into him. Not even to do anything else. Just sit, and let her thigh have his hand and her head have his head and pretend.

No one leaves, though, because there’s a photo to be taken. And after two hours of failure, they look into the lens and Paul snaps the shot and they’re done in five minutes.

As soon as it’s finished, his hand springs from her thigh like her skin had been burning him. He pointedly avoids looking at her as they get off the couch. The scowl is back in full force. All the soft vulnerability is gone as suddenly as a flipped switch. He _is_ an actor, after all.

She doesn’t cry, even when she’s left alone to change back into her own clothes. Her eyes can’t be red for shooting.

* * *

They don’t speak between takes except when necessary. They avoid rehearsing together. The director chalks it up to an artistic decision and embraces it, especially when it becomes clear how well they work together without prior preparation. Not infrequently he interprets a line differently than she expects, which throws her off guard. And her character is supposed to be thrown off guard by him, as his is by her. She gives as good as she gets. Sometimes she’ll do or say something differently to surprise him, and his eyebrows flicker. She pushes her advantage.

Lines that were completely innocent on the page become charged in their mouths. She’s constantly off balance, but it’s okay because so is he. Their scenes have more conversation. The chill between their characters starts to thaw. But once the take is over, the chill is back in full force.

The latest script is delivered one morning, and she doesn’t think much of it except to plan when she’ll have time to start learning her lines. She skims it in the hair and makeup chair.

She gets about two thirds of the way through and turns white, then red. How did she not see this coming? Even consider the possibility? She had read her contract, of course, and knew she’d agreed to sex scenes, but she’d never thought that they’d actually...

As soon as her hair and makeup are done she throws on a coat and goes over to bang on the door of his trailer. He answers it.

“Did you know about this?” she snaps without preamble.

“What?”

 _“This?”_ She holds up the script.

“Oh. No.”

“That’s all you have to say?”

“How can you possibly blame this on me, Rey?”

“I’m not,” she seethes.

“You can’t say you didn’t see it coming.”

“I didn’t,” she bites curtly.

“Oh. Well, my deepest apologies for being good at my job.”

“Where the _fuck_ do you get off—”

“Shh!” he interrupts. “Do you want everyone to hear?”

She glances behind her and snaps, “Then I’m coming in.”

He hesitates for a minute, then relents. “Fine.” He steps back to make room for her.

She climbs the stairs and slams the door behind. “Are you honestly trying to tell me you think you’re a better actor than me? Because I’ve had it up to—”

“No,” he cuts her off. “I don’t think I’m a better actor than you.”

She’s startled and tries to rally. “Well, good. Because you’re not.”

“I know.”

“Okay.” There’s a too-long moment of silence, and she realizes that this is the first time they’ve been alone together since _that_ night.

“Why are you here, Rey?”

“What do you mean, why am I here? It’s my job.”

“Why are you in my trailer? To yell at me for the fact that our characters have a love scene?”

He takes a half a step toward her, and she shies away. He chuckles bitterly.

“You realize that for this to work, you’re going to have to let me touch you?”

She scoffs. “I know.”

He steps forward, and she steps back, until her back is against the wall. “Do you, Rey?”

“Yes.” This time with less certainty.

“It won’t just be my hand on your leg.”

She flushes as she considers the truth of his words.

“Can you bear to let me touch you?”

She doesn’t understand him. The intensity of his voice, or the pleading in his eyes. All she knows is that he’s making fun of her. She would’ve let him touch her every day and every night, but he didn’t want her, and now he’s mocking her for it.

She doesn’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. She leaves his trailer with her head held high and she doesn’t look back.

* * *

There’s a knock on her hotel room door that night as she’s getting ready for bed. The doors don’t have peepholes, so she asks, “Who is it?”

“Kylo.”

She looks down at her oversized flannel pajamas and fuzzy purple slippers. “What do you want?”

“Can I come in?”

“No.”

“Then can you open the door so I can talk to you?”

She bites her lip, considering. She opens the door about a foot. “What?”

He launches right in. “I don’t want things to be... bad between us.”

She props the door open with her foot and crosses her arms. “I don’t think they are, Kylo,” she answers airily.

He glances down at her slippers and quickly back up at her face. “Rey. Please. Can we just...” He trails off.

“What?”

“Can we just get through this scene?”

“What makes you think it’s just this scene?”

“What?” He looks aghast.

“What if they keep on writing in sex scenes?”

“They won’t.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

“You’ve seen the show, right? Something tragic is going to happen. We aren’t allowed to be happy.”

 _Our characters aren’t allowed to be happy,_ he means, of course. “I don’t think they are,” she says stubbornly. “Happy.”

“Really?” He looks genuinely interested. “Is that how you interpret your character? Mine is. And it fucking terrifies him. She’s the first good thing he’s ever had in his life, and the only reason he didn’t make love to her that first night on the road was because he didn’t want to ruin it.”

“Well my character is just using yours to get off,” she says, completely deadpan.

He cracks first. He tries to hide his grin, but it breaks through, and so does hers, and soon they’re both cackling hysterically in the doorway of her hotel room at midnight.

They finally regain themselves and stand there, recovering their breath. His smile fades away. So does hers.

From the way he’s looking at her she knows with absolute certainty that he’s going to kiss her, and she’s going to let him. She’s going to kiss him back. She’s going to pull him into her hotel room and she’s going to wrap her flannel pajama’d arms around him and she’s never going to let him leave. But the phone call never came, so he _has_ to make the first move.

He doesn’t.

He says, “Good night, Rey,” and he turns quickly and walks away before she can decide how to answer.

She shuts the door and leans against it heavily, and she wishes for the thousandth time that she could be as unaffected by him as he is by her.

* * *

Down the hall, another hotel room door is being leaned against—perhaps even more heavily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO THANKS FOR READING I LOVE YOU. The last two chapters will be coming Friday and Sunday, respectively! 😊


	4. The Pearl

Not rehearsing isn’t an option this time around. The producers hired an intimacy coordinator: something Rey hadn’t heard of, so she didn’t know what to expect. When the coordinator—Judith—shows up on set, Rey likes her immediately. She’s no-nonsense. She’s there to help desexualize the choreography, she explains. She’s Rey and Kylo’s advocate. She’ll make sure no one is asked to do anything that makes them uncomfortable. Considering that simply being in proximity with Kylo makes Rey uncomfortable, that ship has somewhat sailed.

She appreciates Judith, though. It feels much better to hear, “And then your left hand makes muscle-level contact with his rear,” than it would be to hear, “And then you grope his ass.” They talk it though first, the director explaining his vision, the intimacy coordinator interpreting the choreography, and Rey and Kylo mostly just nodding and avoiding eye contact with each other. Judith stops often to give either of them the option to veto each step. Kylo doesn’t object to anything, and if he can do it all, then Rey can too.

The scene sounds excruciatingly long when described step by step, but it’ll really probably be around three minutes. It comes on the heels of a couple minutes of dialogue. The director suggests that they read the dialogue to get used to the transition that will be required.

Kylo looks at Rey across the table where they’re sitting. “Fine,” he says.

She nods.

They each pick up their script and flip to the relevant page.

Kylo has the first line. Rey looks down at her script, waiting for him to start. Finally, he does. “Why are you here?”

She doesn’t look up. “You know why.”

“I know the reason you’ve been telling yourself.”

“It’s the truth.”

“You could’ve left a dozen times.”

She clears her throat. “I need the amulet.”

“What you need is to know the truth. About your family.”

“That’s not what I need and you know it.” She still hasn’t looked up.

“The amulet is gone. Destroyed.”

She shakes her head and reads mechanically. “You’re lying.”

“I’m not.”

“You’re lying.” If she were acting, she would put some emotion in the words.

“You know it’s true,” he says quietly. “You’ve known it all along.”

She’s supposed to start crying now. “Don’t you dare lie to me—not you.”

“Tell me what you need. Tell me why you’re here.”

“The amulet.”

“Tell me.”

“The amulet.”

“Tell me the _truth.”_

_“I need the amulet.”_

He pauses for longer than he needs to. “Tell me, pearl.”

She never looks up. “I need _you,_ all right?”

That’s when he’ll kiss her. Then they’ll undress each other, then he’ll lay her down on the fur by the fire and then...the rest. It sounds easier when Judith describes it.

She looks up at Kylo. His eyes dart away. She wonders how long he was watching her.

They finish shooting the previous episode that afternoon. The knowledge of what waits hangs over her, but she does her best not to show it. Kylo is just as quiet as always, between takes, but he seems more...thoughtful? Solicitous? She doesn’t know what to make of him.

He doesn’t come to her door that night.

They have rehearsal the following morning. They’ll do everything fully clothed, Judith had explained to them. Rey puts on jeans and a sweater. A thick one. She brushes her teeth twice.

They meet at the set: a rustically dilapidated stone hut a few miles from the hotel. They run the lines. They block out the scene. It’s not as hard as she thinks it would be; they’re actors, after all. Rey thinks she can do it, right up until Kylo kisses her for the first time. She stiffens, and he backs off immediately. She excuses herself, walks around the corner of the hut and takes deep breaths of the cold air.

She’s about to go back and do her job when Judith comes out.

“It’s cold,” she observes.

Rey nods. They stand there for a minute, watching the grass and the sky.

“You don’t have to do this,” Judith says.

“Yes, I do.”

“If you did, I wouldn’t be doing my job. They can fade to black. They can get a double. We have options, Rey.”

“I can do it,” she insists.

“I know you can,” Judith agrees. “But you don’t have to.”

Rey looks over at her. “Thanks,” she says, and means it.

She goes back in the hut. Judith follows. Without preamble, Rey says, “I would feel more comfortable just doing this in character, with the cameras. Not rehearsing.” She looks straight at Kylo. “Would that be okay with you?”

He hesitates, then nods.

“Good.”

They have the rest of the morning and early afternoon off. She takes a long walk that breaks into a run at times. Her legs ache and her lungs burn, but it helps. She comes back in time for lunch. There’s a note in her trailer from Judith, telling her to put her costume on by three so she won’t have anachronistic bra or underwear lines on her skin. Shooting is scheduled to start at dark, at five.

She reads her lines over and over. She rereads Judith’s choreography. There are guidelines, too, that Judith drew up, about who’s essential on the closed set. What clothing is to be removed and when. How they’ll be covered between takes.

She takes a shower. A hot one. She puts on a robe and curls up in a corner of her trailer. There’s still an hour before she needs to be in wardrobe. She thinks about her character, and her family that’s not her family. She thinks about the amulet and how what you think you need is sometimes a bedtime story you tell yourself.

There’s a knock on her trailer door. She pulls her robe closed at her neck to answer it.

Kylo is standing there, at the foot of the steps. She doesn’t say anything, she just looks down at him. He looks up at her.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

She nods. “I’m fine.”

He clears his throat. “I’d like it if we could be—friends.”

“Friends,” she echoes.

“Would that be possible?”

“I don’t know,” she says honestly.

He doesn’t say anything.

“But we can try.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

He nods jerkily. “I’m glad.”

She clutches her robe tighter and looks down at him hopefully. “See you soon?”

He grins. “Don’t forget your slippers.”

“Nope, I’m gonna warm my feet on you. I’ll have Judith write it into the choreography.”

“I’m going to have to veto that.”

“Oh, _that’s_ where you draw the line?”

He smiles. “See you soon, Rey.”

For one second, she’s not nervous anymore.

* * *

It’s easier in the dark, with the flickering of the fire. They’re not Kylo and Rey like this; they’re the rogue and the pearl. The dialogue goes well. Her emotions are high enough that the tears come readily. And when he kisses her she can cling to him and have it not be her.

They don’t follow the choreography, not perfectly. They fumble getting each other’s clothes off, and when they smile it’s not the characters, it’s them laughing at themselves and the costumes. But no one says cut, and they keep going. Rey wonders if Judith told the director it would be easier for them that way.

Their clothes are gone. He lowers her down onto the rug, cradling her weight with a rock-hard arm. They need to pause for two of the cameras to reposition. He suspends himself over her in a plank so they’re not touching while they wait. He glances down at her and smiles a quick reassurance. Then someone says action, and they resume. Unhurriedly. She opens her thighs and he carefully settles his hips between, and she can feel the modesty sack that holds his genitals against her own shield. But the impression isn’t overpowering because she’s caged in by his arms and his chest presses to hers, and there’s so much else to feel. She’s trembling, but it’s okay, because her character would be trembling at his skin against her skin. Judith calls a pause to make sure they’re both comfortable. Rey nods. So does Kylo. And they go on. They both look down as he mimes guiding himself into her, and she remembers the stretch and contorts her face. He pants raggedly, like he’s really inside her, and smooths her hair back from her forehead like Judith said and kisses her, like Judith said. She takes a handful of his ass to urge him on, like Judith said, and it takes them a few thrusts to agree on a rhythm because he’s not really fucking her, but it’s okay because it’s their characters’ first time. She smiles and lets her head fall to the side, succumbing to pretend pleasure. He kisses her neck. The fire is hot against her skin.

They take another pause for a check-in. He’s okay. So is she. They briefly talk through what’s coming next. The cameras adjust. They continue.

He thrusts harder, as he needs to in order to scoot her up the fur. She spreads her knees farther to give him better leverage.

She didn’t anticipate that this new angle would give his pelvis better access to her clit, protected as it is. It’ll be fine. They won’t go long enough for anything to happen. There are only twenty or thirty seconds more before they’ll both fake their orgasms and the scene will be over. He moans and kisses her and strokes her cheek with one giant thumb, like he’s supposed to. She closes her eyes and loses herself in her character. Lets herself feel what _she’s_ feeling.

And then his thumb moves. To a spot Judith never said it should go. A spot that his character doesn’t know about. One only Kylo does, because she told him, in another lifetime.

Just below her ear.

She’s coming before she can help it. And he hears her whimper and he feels her convulse and he _knows._

He freezes for a few interminable seconds, then leaps off her before she can push him off.

She grabs for her robe and ties it on. She throws her coat on over it and shoves her feet in her boots. She stops in front of the director, shaking. “I’m sorry. I have to stop for tonight. Is that okay? I’m sorry.”

Judith interjects before he can answer. “Of course. What do you need?”

“A ride back to the hotel.”

“Done.”

And it is. She opens the car window, even with the cold, and lets her face go numb. The driver drops her off at the back entrance so she doesn’t have to walk through the lobby in her robe.

She takes the stairs two at a time and reaches the door of her room, panting, before she realizes she doesn’t have her key. She pats the pockets of her coat to make sure, and they’re empty, so she sinks to the floor and curls up against the door and cries.

Her bed waits right on the other side, only a few feet away, with a pillow for her tears. She’s so close. She was _so close._

She let herself believe that it was true. That he really thought she was a good actor. That he really wanted to be her friend.

And then he did... _that._

She props her knees up and buries her face in her arms and sobs.

She doesn’t hear it when he bursts out of the stairwell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I heard you like cliffhangers. 😊 Final chapter Sunday...
> 
> Intimacy coordinators are [a real thing](https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-51745702)!


	5. Another Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to [@bensoloswhore](https://twitter.com/bensoloswhore) for this lovely moodboard!

“Rey,” someone is saying. “I’m sorry.”

She doesn’t raise her head.

There’s someone kneeling down next to her, or maybe sitting. “I’m sorry.”

She looks up just enough to see that it’s _him._ She buries her face back in her arms, hugs her knees closer. She sobs harder.

“I didn’t mean to. I forgot. I swear, I didn’t mean to. I’m so sorry. Rey.”

She raises her head and wipes her nose, red and splotchy with tears. “Why didn’t you call?”

He’d been kneeling up, but that knocks him back on his heels. “What did you say?”

She chokes out a sob. “Why didn’t you call me after?”

“You left.”

She sniffs and wipes her cheek with her palm. “I left you my number.”

“You didn’t.”

She searches his eyes frantically for a lie and doesn’t find it. “I left it on the nightstand.”

“Rey.” He balls his hands into fists in his lap. “When I woke up and you were gone—that was the worst I’ve ever felt in my life. I kept on thinking you’d just gone out to get something and would be right back. But you didn’t come. So I thought you’d left a note. Maybe on the pillow. I tore the sheets off the bed.”

Her sobs are small quavers now. She can’t take her eyes off him.

“I couldn’t believe that you hadn’t felt what I felt. Any of it. Rey. I went back to that club every night for a month, in case you came back. I looked up every actor I could find with your name. I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I didn’t know how I’d gotten it so wrong, that it really was just a one-night thing for you.”

Her tears have started again, but for a different reason.

“I _love_ you, Rey, do you get that?”

She’s shaking her head even as she smiles through the tears, because it’s impossible, isn’t it?

He’s touching her hand, her arm, her face. “I love you. I love you.”

Why is she leaning against the door when she could be leaning against him? She fixes that, and he gathers her into his arms and rocks her back and forth and she clings to him and he says, “I love you. I’m sorry. I love you.”

It doesn’t matter than she doesn’t have a room key, because he does. He carries her in his arms down the hall, and he only sets her on her feet so he can open the door.

She waits until they get inside before she kisses him. She shrugs her coat off and toes off her boots, and it’s only after he gets his coat off that she realizes he’s dripping with sweat.

“What—”

“Ran here,” he says, trying to recapture her lips.

She stops him with a hand to his chest. “You _ran_ here? Three miles? Kylo, it’s pitch dark! And freezing!”

“Needed to make sure you were okay.” _Kiss._

“You’ll catch your death of cold!”

“Catching a cold because you get cold isn’t a real thing.” _Kiss._ “Oh, and my real name is Ben.”

“You’ve been lying to me this whole time!?”

“I love you.” _Kiss._

“Get in the shower, right now.”

“Come with me.” _Two kisses._

“Uh uh,” she squeals, grinning. “You’ll get distracted.”

“You’re distracting.”

“If you shower, I’ll be waiting in bed for you when you come out.”

“Okay.” He kisses her deeply. “I really am sorry.”

She touches his cheek with tender fingertips. “I know.”

“What can I do to make it better?”

“I’ll think about it while you’re in the shower.”

He turns back to look at her from the doorway of the bathroom. He looks uncertain.

“What’s wrong?”

“You are going to be here, right? When I get out?”

She smiles and blinks back fresh tears. “Yes, Ben.”

* * *

She doesn’t wait for him in bed after all. She takes off her robe and waits for him naked right outside the bathroom so he doesn’t even have to suffer a second of doubt that she’ll be there.

He’s hesitant at first. He backs her up against the wall but holds her delicately, like he doesn’t want to break her. “Are you sure?” he keeps asking.

“Yes,” she says, again and again. “Please.”

He lets his towel fall at his feet and takes her against the wall, like the first time. It feels right. It’s desperate but not hurried. He fucks up into her slowly and watches her face like it’s the only thing he ever wants to see on earth. He swallows her moans and gives her his in return, and when she comes it’s a drawn-out, shuddering affair, and he works her through it with shallow thrusts and murmured praise.

“Ben,” she gasps after, and laughs at the pleasure of being in his arms.

He smiles softly. “What can I do for you?”

“Hold me.”

“What else?”

“Love me.”

“Forever.”

“Take me to bed.”

“Yes.”

* * *

“Did you really think I’d found your number and decided not to call you?” They’re lying naked on their sides facing each other, and he can’t seem to keep from touching her.

“I didn’t know,” she says honestly. He strokes her lips with his thumb. She kisses it.

“Why didn’t you ask?” His voice seeps inside her and fills up the cracks where the broken parts are.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I thought you didn’t like me.”

“I used to dream about you,” she confesses. “I never stopped, really.”

He runs his hand over the curve of her elbow, her waist her hip. “What did you dream about?”

“Lots of things,” she murmurs noncommittally. “Did you dream about me?”

He smiles. “Only when I was awake.”

She laughs and scoots closer to him so she can drape her leg over his. Not for sex, just to touch him. “What did you dream about?”

He kisses her nose and her eyelids. “Everything.”

She pouts playfully. “That’s not very specific.”

“You. In my bed, against the wall. In my kitchen, eating food I made. Reading. Talking. Fighting. Going on dates. Letting me kiss you good night. Letting me kiss you good morning.”

She wedges her foot between his calves. “Why me?”

He strokes her arm thoughtfully. “I could tell you it’s because you’re brilliant and talented and caring and hilarious, but it’s not, because I only learned those things about you since we’ve been working together. I just saw you that night, and I touched you, and you looked up at me under the streetlight while we were waiting for that cab, and I just knew. That you were it for me.” He bends his head to kiss her hand where it’s nestled between their chins.

“Ben?” she says, wrapping her mouth around his new old name.

“Yeah?”

“I think you’re it for me too.”

* * *

They forget to talk for a while because their mouths are too busy kissing each other. She snuggles into him and whimpers and squirms and grinds against him until he hikes her leg up over his hip and feeds his cock to her cunt where it waits impatiently, wet and pink and swollen with want. Her lips part and her eyes close and it’s heaven: the fullness. She could cry for every wasted minute that she’s spent without him inside her but instead she kisses him and reaches down between them to put her finger right at the ring of her entrance for the pleasure of feeling herself stretching to take him, feeling his hardness as it disappears into her body. His breath catches and he gathers her closer into him and buries his face in her neck as he moans and plants his foot on the bed for better leverage and plunges into her.

“Ben,” she chokes out.

He cups her ass in his hand, caresses the underside of her thigh. “What is it, sweetheart?”

A tear escapes the corner of her eye without her meaning to. “Can I tell you something?”

He stills inside her and presses her to him so closely that it’s only their skin that’s keeping them from being one person. “Anything.”

She burrows her nose in between the pillow and his cheek. It’s muffled, when she says: “I love you. Okay?”

He doesn’t answer in words, but he cups the back of her head in her hand and starts thrusting again, and his breath stumbles like a sob and when she comes apart around him, there are tears on her face that aren’t hers.

She wipes them off his face and hers and laughs and cries and kisses him, and oh. _This_ is joy.

* * *

The hotel doesn’t have room service, but Ben goes downstairs and begs or bribes the right person and comes back up with a spread of cheese, fruit, biscuits, and chocolate.

He lends her a tee-shirt. They eat sitting facing each other on the bed with their legs tangled up. Every few minutes he touches her feet to make sure they’re warm enough.

“What can I do to make it up to you?” he asks.

She smiles and takes a bite. “The food is helping.”

“Rey. Seriously. What do you want me to do?”

She swallows and looks up at him. “Tell them they can’t use the footage.”

“Any of it?”

“No, just...the end.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. They can have the rest.”

“They don’t deserve it if it makes you uncomfortable.”

“Our characters deserve it.”

“They do.”

“They deserve to be happy and not die.”

“Would you like me to tell the writers that?”

She grins through a mouthful of pear and cheese. “Mm hmm.”

He caresses her ankle. “I would do anything for you, you know?”

She swallows. “Okay.”

“That’s allowed?”

She smiles. “Yeah.”

* * *

_Every once in a while they go back to the club where they met. They pretend they’re meeting for the first time again. He introduces himself as Kylo. She chooses a fake name. He always forgets it. They’re too recognizable together to stay long. As soon as the first person pulls a phone out to take a picture of them, they slip away through the crowd, back home._

_She feels him up in the elevator. He slides a hand under the hem of her crop top and nips her neck. He scoops her up and carries her down the hall to their door. She giggles and chides him, “You wouldn’t do this if you’d really just met me tonight.”_

_“I have no idea what you mean, stranger I just met tonight.”_

_“Gertrude.”_

_“Really? That’s what you’re going with?”_

_“Stay in character.”_

_He sets her down to let them in, and he tugs her inside and kisses her hard before spinning her around and pinning her front to the door. She plants her palms flat by her ears and arches her back and quivers as he kneels down behind her. His hands slide up her thighs, taking her tight skirt with them until it clings to her waist and he can grab her ass in both hands, kneading and licking and biting. She squirms against the door and begs for him and he yanks her panties halfway down her thighs and stands up and feeds his cock to her needy cunt. He pulls her hair with an iron fist and pins her wrist to the door, and he fucks her until the door thumps in its frame and she sobs with love and pleasure. She forgets to call him Kylo, and cries “Ben” when she peaks._

_As his come trickles out, he wraps his arms around her middle and she rests her forehead against the door while he kisses her neck and whispers in her ear how much he loves her. “Twice as much as yesterday.”_

_They usually end up in bed for the second time. He’s always torn between wanting her body under his and wanting to watch as she rides him. She teases him, sometimes, bobbing on his cock. “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather be on top?”_

_“No,” he grunts, his voice cracking when she brings her wrists together on his abdomen to squeeze her breasts between her arms. “Don’t want anything but this, ever.”_

_Other times, when he’s driving into her from above with her ankles locked around his back, she asks, “Don’t you want me to be on top, love?”_

_“Never,” he growls, thrusting extra hard for emphasis. “Want you just like this always.”_

_She laughs and quivers and he kisses her with his heart on his lips and strokes beneath her ear and she peaks above him, beneath him, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is him, and him, and forever him._

_She has to drag herself away to go to the bathroom afterwards, and by the time she comes back he’s retrieved their rings from the bedside table: the one to the right of the bed, under the overzealous air vent. She’s never so happy as when she slips back in their sheets beside him and he slides her ring on her finger anew with just as much love in his eyes as the first time. Actually, no: much more._

_Twice as much as yesterday._

* * *

Her belly is full of fruit and cheese and chocolate. She’s well on her way to sleep when he gathers her closer into his chest and murmurs in her ear. “Rey.”

“Mmm?” She doesn’t open her eyes.

“I’m going to need your phone number.”

She smiles and hums contentedly. “I’ll tell you in the morning.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed! This fic would not have existed without my darling friend Halle and her brilliant prompt. Thank you for everything, sweetheart. ❤️
> 
> I’m on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/CeliaAnd2) if you’d like to come visit! 😊


End file.
